What If Guns Aren’t the Problem?

What if our recent spate of mass violence is just a symptom of our country’s bigger issues?

Like putting people with mental illnesses in jail instead of treatment. Like few opportunities for self-actualization. Like frustration created by wealth and income inequality. Like vapid lifestyles devoted to meaningless, unfulfilling, work, interrupted by callow consumerism, tempered by hours watching teevee.

There are a lot of things wrong with our country, and making guns the boogie man doesn’t address the bigger issues.

Witnessing the senseless avoidable violence by police against people of color makes me think that gun ownership shouldn’t be illegal, it should be mandatory.

If only it were that simple. All I can do is refer you to the situation in a number of other places that have meaningful gun controls in effect (we’ve all seen the list of places). They must have mental health problems, too, but we never see reports of mass shootings from those places, do we? My new slogan is NG. NP. (No Gunz. No Problems).

Mr. Dungan, please list those places without mass shootings. Let’s start with England. They virtually banned guns, are trying to ban most knives and they still have terrorist attacks using cars, bombs, and occasionally guns. The awful truth is that, since the ban on firearms, the murder rate has had a slightly higher increase. All crime in England is higher and the British police hide the problem by “cooking the books”. China bans all guns but they’ve had mass stabbings with shockingly high numbers of death and serious injury. Japan has a very low number of deaths by firearms but we’re talking about a tremendous cultural difference. Their murder rate is very low but the suicide rate is astronomical. One reason for this is the way they classify deaths. If a man kills his family then himself, this is classified as a “family suicide”. If you bothered to do some research, you’d find here in Texas that law enforcement is very much more law abiding than the average citizen and those with licenses to carry are more law abiding than police. And elrichboy, there is no overwhelming police violence against persons of color. As a matter of fact, 60% of gun deaths are suicides. There are more deaths of blacks by other blacks than by police, usually gang members. I could go on to book length about this subject, and there are many good books putting a lie to the anti-gun rhetoric, but I won’t. I suggest you start with the Texas Department of Public Safety stats. Here’s the conviction rates of licensed gun owners http://www.dps.texas.gov/rsd/LTC/reports/convrates.htm , and here’s the demographics for license holders. http://www.dps.texas.gov/rsd/LTC/reports/demographics.htm I also suggest you look at the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the CDC reports. Both of them showed 50% decline in violent crimes over the last 30+ years, as well as a slight increase over the last two years.

the vegas shooter had no criminal record or history of mental illness, was very well off financially and had no apparent enemies. it reminds me of a movie called “the life of david gale”. It’s too “perfect” a crime for the gun control crowd, they would easily sacrifice a bunch of country music fans.

We’ve always had guns. So why are there so many killings now ? Is it culture, movies, mental issues, anger with society. I read a book in college that stated the more industrialized we become the more problems develop(mental). Is that it ?

What about all the stabbings and use of cars to hit crowds ? Do we outlaw cars and knives ?

If you can’t purchase guns in stores, the black market will thrive with stolen and homemade weapons. Look at Mexico and the Middle East. Pakistani gun smiths make anything under the sun. It would happen here as well.